Baal
Baal (バアル, Baaru) is a pure-blooded Vampire Noble who fought Evangeline and Karin in her past. He backed up Senator Gorgonzola in his attempt to take over the Old World, and later stalked them for centuries. In the present, he takes control of several key allies and attacks UQ Holder's headquarters. Appearance Baal has the aspect of a rather androgynous boy with long light hair, framing his face and reaching down his back, that cover one of his eyes. He looks human, but has slit pupils, claw-like nails and fangs reflecting his vampiric nature. He is clad in black robes and capes, sometimes wearing a long black cloak in tatters that covers his entire body. When he unleash his full power, his face gets covered with creepy, demonic eyes, even on his hair, and two black bat-like wings appears on each side of his head. He can also turn his cloak's rim into several feathered wings. Personality Baal is collected, cold and aloof, rarely losing composure unless exalted by success or absolutely livid. He seems always bored yet a bit playful, fitting the child he looks like, as if he had seen everything and cannot be surprised anymore, which might be true given his millennia of existence. As such, he takes great interest in anything surprizing, mostly unusual people. He spent over a century learning everything about Evangeline and Karin, who can and did take him off-guard many times. In the same way, he is intrigued by Touta and greatly admires the Mage of the Beginning, calling her a "genius". Baal is very indifferent to people's suffering. He actively favours the hostile invasion of Earth by the magicaly and technologically far superior Megalomesembria nation, without a care in the world for the suffering it brought, though he did it to provide them a guidance that would have spared them overpopulation and war. He displays strong blood lust and loves crushing challenging foes in gruesome ways, harrassing Evangeline mostly because she is one of the very few beings that can hold her own against him. Finally, he proves pretty sadistic, enjoying putting Karin and Evangeline through all sorts of ordeals and watch what happens next, just to alleviate his boredom. Baal is very haughty, boastful and condescending. He demonstrates a strong "might makes right" mindset, openly scorning foes who cannot match him and revelling in his god-like power, regarding in a disturbingly childish way that his power enables him to do as he pleases. Paradoxically, he harbours a distinct, albeit twisted, fondness for humanity, describing them as siblings from raised on another planet. As such, he sides with The Mage of the Beginning's plan to relocate the entire Solar System in an edenic alternate reality, describing it as the solution to all their woes. Still, he regards humanity as weak and child-like, needing a super-human to lead them and protect them like children needing the guidance of an adult. Like Dana, he regards the duty of the powerful to help and nurture the powerless, but while she helps them grow and seize their own destinies, he acts through a sort of Messiah Complex, deciding what is best for them without caring for casualties and never bothering to ask for their opinions, considering them like unruly children who cannot be left to their own devices without wasting away. On the other hand, he harbours a strong dislike for immortals, deeming them a threat for mankind, killing and maiming them without a qualm. History Baal's past is very mysterious. Like all Vampire Nobles he was once a human living on the planet Venus around twelve thousand years before the start of the series, beign part of a considerably scientifically and magically advanced society. While his contemporaries destroyed their world in apocalyptic wars, in search of true immortality, Baal and the other High Daylight Walkers became immortal undeads and lived for many millennia, during which their power grew. Where Baal resides remains unknown, though it might be in the Magical World of Reverse Mars. At some point, he created a high-level human-like light spirit of tremendous might named Sept Shichijuurou Nanao, to serve as his bodyguard and second-in-command. Plot Evangeline's past Baal makes his first appearance after Karin defeats one of the mages from the Mundus Magicus who was oppressing Earth, kidnapping children to drain their life-force. He set a magic-depleting spores that drained Evangeline's power when she entered his castle, and trapped her with vines, but was destroyed by Karin's power of prayers. Baal arrives clad in rags, pretending to be a captive, but immediately crushes them both, and and they can only escape with Jinbei's intervention.UQ Holder! Manga: Chapter 153 As the three start investigating in Megalomesembria and discover that the invasion of mages is the doing of the smarmy Senator Gorgonzola, they infiltrate his palace with the intent of killing him to stop his plans, but Baal intervenes. Evangeline's group hold their own against hom and his main servant Sept. He unleashes his shadow and overwhelms them, until Evangeline uses Magia Erebea to reflect back his spell back, banishing him into a dimensional void.UQ Holder! Manga: Chapter 154 About a hundred and twenty years later, he confronts them again, having learnt all he could about them, and feeds Karin with a World Tree Seed to make it grow from within her and seal her inside it. Much later, Evangeline got aquainted with another Vampire Noble called Nikitis Laps, who helped her seal Baal away.UQ Holder! Manga: Chapter 158 Present Time Baal broke free from his seal at some unknown point. He then retook control of Sept and used a parasite to control Juuzou Shishimi, the two mightiest UQ Numbers, and spent some time observing his old nemesis' organization, learning about Touta and expressing some interest. He also took control of his fellow Vampire Noble Dana Ananga Jagannatha and gained the cooperation of Nikitis Laps, whom he sends assassinate Touta, who has just defeated Fate Averruncus. Fate saves him from Nikitis' sneak attack, but gets decapitated, and Touta confronts the Vampire Noble he regarded as a teacher. After a while, Baal took advantage of Evangeline's absence to launch a full-scale attack on UQ Holder's headquarters. He has Sept and Juuzou confront the Numbers present, and diverts a huge satellite which he previously filled with hordes of summoned demons on the headquarters. Karin manages to block the satellite with her angel summons, while Jinbei and Gengorou Makabe manage to warp every non fighter to safety, but the demon hordes still break out and attack. Jinbei pretends to get killed and uses his space-warping powers to defeat Juuzou and the parasite that has taken hold of him, only to get trounced by a controlled Dana. Meanwhile, Gengorou, Touta and his friends manage to seal Sept into a mirror, through careful teamwork and combination of their respective skills. Baal later comes out of hiding, professing his love for humanity, and orders Dana to destroy the immortals, but Touta engages him in hand-to-hand battle and manages to land several hits, thanks to his new technique enabling him to spawn wherever he spreads his blood to blitz his foe. As a freed Sept is attacking Touta's friends, the young vampire channels the core of Venus from which his power come from to create a gigantic demon-like familiar around himself, engaging Baal's shadow-monsters. Baal retaliates by fusing all his shadowns into a single being and gains the upper hand. Touta does not relent and manages to warp close, but Nikitis enters the fray. Later, a healed and freed Juuzou saves his comrades against Dana, and a returning Evangeline counter Baal's attack with a tremendous ice wave. Baal takes down every Number with spears of darkness and subdues Kirie Sakurame with tendrils, but Juuzou slashes him with his ability to cut down even god-like beings, and Nikitis, who contrary to him genuinely likes humans for what they are, turns on him and crushes his heart. Enraged, he orders Dana to destroy them all, but she breaks free of his control and manages to destroy her parasite-infested self, before thoroughly trashing her fellow Noble for laying hand on his kind. However, they cannot find him after that, meaning that he managed to flee. Later, Evangeline follows his energy to a point in space, from which she believe they will locate the Mage of the Beginning. Abilities As expected from a Vampire Noble, Baal is by far one of the mightiest beings of the setting. Like all vampires, he has incredible speed, strength, stamina and resilience, enough to casually shatter steel and stone, and destroy buidings in a single blow, as well as unrivaled regenerative abilities, being able to recover from attacks that could destroy a castle. His presence alone exsudes a powerful aura of dread. Battle Magic: Baal masters tremendous attacks, like one that instantly creates countless beam-like blades of light all around to strike from every side in a split-second, or a huge fireball whose explosion can level a gigantic palace. He can conjure enormous blocks of stone to crush people under, or fire invisible blasts of force devastating enough to vaporise someone. He can also hurl orbs of magic that banish targets to the rift between worlds. he can conjure spear-like crosses made of darkness which he wields at close-range. He can also conjure tendrils of darkness to bind his targets, and crush them if need be. Magic Mastery: Baal was able to become a High Daylight Walker through magical skill and mastery alone, and his expertise grew exponientally during the following millennia. He can summon hordes of powerful winged demons, and has access to World Tree seeds which he can make grow instantly. He can also create multiples clones of himself to attack foes at once, and deflect even people's unique psionic powers. Baal is also frighteningly skilled in creating magical constructs and beings. For instance, he created sentient, cyclopean, monstrous, parasites that can take control of people, keeping their personality mostly intact while subtly removing some aspects, like restrain or morality, and guiding their worst impulse through telepathic talk. At worse, they can override their host and take full control, displaying a viciously sadistic and vindictive streak, and are able to sprout tentacles, or a trunk-sized tail-like appendage to fight. Worse, they have full access to their host's powers and abilities and cannot be removed without a chirurgical intervention on the spiritual plane, as the parasite is directly encroached to its victim's soul. As stated prior, his masterpiece is Sept Shichijuurou Nanao, an artificial, high-level light-spirit, with immortality and agelessness similar to his own, as well as incredible power and skills with weapons. True Form: Baal's true spirit manifests as a wriggling mass of countless demonic figures all around him, coming from his shadow.Giant demonic eyes, mouths, spike-like blades and wyrms covered in sharp fangs and evil-looking eyes, who attack at once as if they each had their own sentience, overwhelming many foes to the point that Evangeline needed her army of puppets to hold her own. He can also fuse all his shadows all around him, resulting in a gargantuarian monster, seemingly made out of tentacles. Tentacles he can shape as he pleases, forming fist as big as his fused shadow. At full might, Baal can spread titanic tentacle-like dragon spirits all over the sky, reaching an untold distance. They seem able to fire gigantic beams from their mouths. Fighting Style Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Baal is an exceptional hand-to-hand fighter and swordsman who fights with a thin longsword, sometimes spear-like weapons.. Even Evangeline herself is outmatched against him, and can only stall him with help from Jinbei and Karin, though he describes her power as close to that of a real Noble. References Navigation Category:Characters Category:Immortals Category:Vampires